A Premise Salesman with Some Things on His Mind

What the Hell is Wrong with KSTP?

KSTP seems to make a priority of highlighting conservative interests and here we go again. Tonight — no surprise — it they highlight “wasted” taxpayer money.

The story is about the expense of moving a historic building to clear the way for the ill-advised new bridge over the St. Croix River. Taxes, you see, are the issue. We need to stop spending taxpayer money on wasteful projects.

Of course no one thought about waste when government approved an unnecessarily costly and oversized bridge in the first place.

The KSTP website headlines the story as “Crumbling Historical Site to Cost Taxpayers Big” even though the story tells us that they don’t know the dollar amount. It is rumored to be in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars. You know…I’ll just say it…so what? As a part of a $700 million bridge project this works out to less than 1/1000 of the total cost.

KSTP has a knack for melodrama, especially if it involves public policy and taxes.

KSTP helpfully advised that people can petition to remove historic status protecting buildings. So you can count on people who who worry about money — time is money — wasting time to “petition” this building from preservation protection.

What’s going to happen to Phil’s Tara Hideaway up the road on Highway 36? It should be preserved, too, and it also has a place on the historic register.

One person’s priority is another person’s waste. When we pay taxes, we collectively invest in our services and future, unless, of course, you’re paying interest on an enormous debt caused by underfunding our government then you’re paying for the past, but that is another issue. Not all things your tax dollars cover will be things you support. However that’s the way it is. Government could not serve the common good if we had to please everyone.

So what is “wrong” with KSTP? Well…ok…I’ll admit my anti-conservative bias. If something is wrong with KSTP then something is wrong with media generally. Don’t expect news to be objective. If you want facts and information, dig and think. Common sense doesn’t have to contradict the facts.